Review

Black Veil Brides are a band that has gained mass attention in recent years from mainstream metal audiences and a whole lot of people love to hate them despite their ability to riff like true cunts. They rose to fame with the music video for their first single entitled Knives And Pens which instantly got a lot of criticism for the band both for Andy Sixx's supposed "emotionless screams" and for the look of the band which involves a lot of make-up and tight leather clothing. Following this the band released two studio albums before releasing their third in early 2013 to mainly positive reaction from the press and fans of the band.

The Wretched And Divine is a concept album that deals with a battle between the Wild Ones and the evil F.E.A.R. It tells the story through a string of F.E.A.R transmitions between songs and also through the lyrics and it does so very well. The lyrics are catchy and fun without being too dark or mysterious like a lot of metal acts. At times they are a little cheesy but this works very well with the band's image as nobody can take them too seriously and can just focus on enjoying the music the band created. The guitars to this album are some of the best in mainstream metal and do a lot to give the band some credit. On most of the songs on here there is a killer solo and a series of very intense and catchy riffs that thunder along at a good pace and keep the music being enjoyable and fun whilst retaining a certain degree of heaviness; although not in the same style as their earlier deathcore works. In The End in particular makes good use of some cool guitar work. This is not a band that over uses breakdowns nor does it have a lot of open string chugging but instead Jinxx plays fast paces and cool sounding riffs; and the soloing to In The End is one of the best solo out there. There are also numerous quick little fills that make for a diverse listen.

The vocal performance has greatly improved here. The scream-clean singing ratio this time greatly favors the latter although there are some occasional screams such as the one that opens up the first proper song I Am Bulletproof. The screams are low in tone and very aggressive and yet still suit the music that the band creates and serve as a nice link back to their earliest works. There are also a number of moments with group chanting sections which is as far as the band really takes their mission to make a "punk album" as they promised prior to the release but it is nice to hear. Resurrect The Sun ends with some group chants and a scream from Andy that closes it off nicely. The clean singing is probably my favorite thing about this album as Andy has a fantastic voice-very low in pitch but still listenable, and he has grown a lot as a singer since their last album.

This album is a good listen with great songs like In The End, Shadows Die, We Don't Belong and New Years Day. The first of these was the main single off of the album and is the last proper song on the album before another FEAR transmition. This was my personal favorite song off of here and it is on this song that Jinxx riffs like a true cunt. The riff set here is fun and fantastic and really ***ing awesome as well as having an emotional chorus to it with some violins dancing around in the background that shows off the band's love for classical music. We Don't Belong has some awesome low pitched vocals and a great set of lyrics. New Years Day has the catchiest chorus this band has ever thought up and is ***ing amazing. Shadows Die has that last moment to it that really sets it apart from the rest of the music.